Liar
by WondrousStrange
Summary: A short story about Theodore Nott in three parts.
1. Part I: The Beast

There was a beast in Theodore Nott's belly, reaching up through his esophagus and tickling his gag reflex. The beast was hot and harder than rock. It made his insides feel humid.

Theodore ignored it. He was good at ignoring things.

* * *

There was one question which he desperately wanted someone to ask him, so he could give the answer he whispered to himself sometimes before he fell asleep.

"No," he would say, gazing straight into his interrogator's face. "No. I've never cried."

It would be a lie.

They would make some exclamation, and ask with wide eyes if there had ever been a time…as a child, surely, he must have…?

"No," he would maintain. "Not even a single tear." He would pause, and then say, with firm conviction, "And I never will."

That part – he _knew_ – that part, at least, would be true.

* * *

"I never will." He whispered it under his breath as a mantra. He thought it as he inhaled, as he exhaled.

When he and his sometimes-girlfriend Daphne made love (they seldom did anything else together), he murmured it despite himself into her dark, messy hair or into the curve of her shoulder, which smelled – not unpleasantly – of cheap peach-scented perfume beneath the sharp odor of sweat and sex.

"Hmm?" She dragged a fingernail lazily over his collarbone, not drawing back to really look him in the eye. "Theo? Did you say something?"

"Nothing, Daphne, baby," he started to reply, but her hot mouth was already on his.

* * *

When they slept together, he often felt the beast twist and writhe in his gut, and rise in his throat and obstruct his breathing. He guided Daphne's hands to circle his neck, then, so he could feel like he was being strangled by something real and tangible. He found it instinctual and necessary. Daphne found it "kind of kinky."

* * *

He could have told her his lie, but something held him back. Maybe it was because the only time he called her "baby," the only time they ever really exchanged even a few brief words without tension or argument, was when they were naked together. Maybe it was because she seldom made eye contact with him, and he wanted the person he lied to to look at him, to search him for some grain of falsehood and come up empty-handed.

Maybe Daphne already believed his lie without being told.

Instead, he told her other lies. He told her he had dreams: about making love to her; about strange, fantastic scenarios which he made up as he went along. Once, in a fit of jealous anger, he had told her that he'd dreamed of sleeping with his boss' secretary.

In reality, he didn't dream. When he was young, he'd had nightmares, but he hadn't dreamed in years. He honestly couldn't remember what it was like to dream.

He remembered what it was like to cry, and he wished and pretended that he didn't.

He didn't remember the nightmares – their monsters, their horrors, his own fear – but he did remember waking from them. Sometimes he would jolt out of his sleep with a small scream, and sit upright on his bed, sweating and panting with his eyes open wide in the darkness. Sometimes he would find himself curled into a tight, protective ball under his covers, and shiver, and squeeze his eyes shut again, and try not to breathe.

Invariably, he started to sob.

He couldn't help it. He tried so hard to stop the tears, but nothing helped. He cried no matter what, so he tried to do so quietly, to not wake anyone else.

Sometimes, his father came in. Mr. Nott was a big man, looming and dark with a presence both powerful and solemn. He did not quiet the room he entered: he silenced it, and could deepen the mood with a glance. When he came in after a nightmare, he sat on the edge of the bed and gazed unblinkingly at the wall, away from his sobbing son. He did not move, but there was a burning in his eyes and an expression on his face that made Theo's stomach turn from shame.

"This is nonsense," he said once the tears stopped. "This crying: it's nonsense and it's weak." Theo felt the heat rise in his cheeks at the emotionless rebuke. He looked down at his pajamas and bit his lip and wiped the snot from his nose. "It doesn't do anyone any good; it doesn't serve any purpose. No one needs to cry." His voice came from his chest, slow and flat. "Your mother never cried. In all the years I knew her, in all the years she was alive, she never cried. She was a strong woman, your mother. I would hope to someday be half the person she was, and she never cried."

And then his father would rise and leave, face smooth, moving out the door as though under the Imperius curse. Theo could never fall asleep again if his father came in after a nightmare.

Sometimes his step-mother came in. She always knocked first, before creeping quietly across the threshold as though worried to wake him, even though she must have been able to hear his quiet wails and choking breath. She knelt beside him and ran her fingers through his hair as if afraid he would bite her. She whispered that it was alright, and gave him a piece of peppermint candy to soothe him back to sleep.

His step-mother was a small, pale woman, and could not have been more unlike the little he remembered of his real mother. She had wispy, fair hair that was constantly contained in a long plait down her back. She blinked too much; her eyes were watery and always seemed a little too wide, though perhaps that was because she had almost no eyebrows. She moved cautiously, with the darting, frightened motions of a mouse. Her voice was hesitant and almost inaudible, and her laugh was too high and too tinny. She never closed her eyes or moved her head when she laughed; the only movement was in her thin, pale lips. She was a kind woman, but Theo suspected that his father didn't love her.

He didn't know whether his father had loved his real mother. He supposed that he had. Theo hadn't really considered the question of whether they loved each other until after she died, and then his father only spoke of her on the nights when he came in after one of Theo's nightmares, as an anecdote to explain why one shouldn't cry.

Theo did not remember much of his mother. He still held on to a few scattered memories without context, and a firm picture of her in his mind: of a tall, striking woman with broad shoulders and full lips forever set in the straightest of lines, of an upraised chin and eyes that flashed fire. But the individual memories were few and far between, and not all of them pleasant.

A few weeks before she vanished, his parents were arguing. He must have been about four, but whenever he remembered it, he felt that he must have been older than that. He did not trust memories, strange and slippery things that they were.

He couldn't remember what they had been arguing about, and was almost positive that he had not known at the time either. They talked almost too quietly to be audible, in sharp, dangerous voices.

Theo sat on the marble tile, coloring absently on a piece of parchment under the watchful eye of a house elf. He scribbled thoughtless, colorful squiggles that slithered across the page in smoothly rounded hills and valleys, forming a never-ending landscape of rainbow colors.

The tense back-and-forth at the kitchen table stopped suddenly, and Theo looked up. His mother leaned across the table, arms folded underneath her breasts and eyes glinting. She whispered to his father, a stream of hissing words that Theo could not make out. Her face was blank.

His father stood abruptly, violently, and slashed his wand across his chest in an angry gesture. There was a loud bang, and his mother tumbled out of her chair, landing heavily on the floor beside Theo. A small expression of shock passed across his father's eyes, his mouth pinched in what might have been guilt.

Theo dropped the parchment and began to cry.

His mother did not look at him. She gazed straight ahead, toward her husband's face but not quite into his eyes. Her lips were pressed in their usual straight line, her eyes betraying no emotion, not hurt and not anger. Smoothing the surprise out of his face, his father matched her expression, his face a mirror to hers. They stayed like that for a long second. The room was quiet except for Theo's small, sniveling sobs.

"Shut up," his mother finally said, twisting to look at Theo. "Stop that, there's no need to cry."

He stopped.

She got up, matter-of-factly, and brushed her robes off. Taking a glass from the cupboard, she filled it with water and then sat back down at her place at the table. She sipped calmly, with the air of one who cannot be disturbed by anything.

His father sat down across from her, holding his body and face peculiarly still.

The silence lingered another moment, then his mother put her glass down on the table, and said, "Well. What now?"

"I'm not sure," his father replied. "I'm really not."

"I'll put Theo to bed then." And his mother took him by the hand, led him to his room, and tucked him in with the same efficient manner she always did.

He cried a great deal after she disappeared. His father did not cry at all.

* * *

Theo did not like thinking about his life when he was so young. It seemed to him that he spent those years doing nothing but crying. Remembering made the beast angry within him, and then it would sink its teeth into the lining of his stomach and spit acid. The pain in his abdomen would become so great that Theo would have trouble standing.

* * *

It was too cold in Theo's flat; his muscles were stiff, but the cold made him lethargic and he didn't want to get up to stretch.

He sat on the corner of his bed wearing nothing but a towel, and had been there since Daphne left his flat in a huff several hours ago. The towel under his thighs was still slightly damp. Goosebumps dimpled his arms and legs, and his eyes were dry and sticky in the cold air. He knew it must be getting late and that he should be getting up – he was supposed to be going to a Christmas party at the Ministry that evening with Daphne, though it seemed now he would be going without her if he went at all – but he couldn't summon the energy. If he didn't start moving, he would be late, but any anxiety had disappeared into a cool numbness.

His body felt curious and alien. He was cold, he knew he was cold, but somehow he did not actually _feel_ cold. Perhaps he had been sitting so long that he had begun to become part of the room, and he did not feel properly cold because in actuality he and his surroundings were the same temperature. He turned the idea of this around in his mind, enjoying it vaguely before discarding it. Theo felt pleasantly distant from himself, enjoyably empty. His body felt like a stone, a cold and immovable piece of tasteless furniture in the room. He felt rather like an abandoned house, unchanging without occupants, quietly taking up space in the world. It was a nice feeling. He wanted to remain there forever, not feeling and only occasionally letting a stray, experimental thought glide across the surface of his consciousness. Nothing troubling, nothing disturbing, just nothingness…

The thought of Daphne, sitting on the floor as she had been earlier that day, crying as she screamed at him, flashed across the nothing-peace of his mind and was gone.

Theo started abruptly. He had not eaten since dinner the night before, and was suddenly aware of his hunger. Reluctantly, he got up, and stood there a minute as if he had forgotten what he meant to do before securing his towel more tightly around his waist and heading, joints stiff, to his kitchen.

He discarded his towel in his pile of dirty clothes and brought a flask of firewhisky and some saltine crackers with him back to the bathroom. He gazed at himself in the small, poorly lit mirror. Daphne often complained about that mirror if she was forced to put on make-up or brush her hair in front of it. Reflected in it now, he felt the beast in its stomach twitch, loosen its coils slightly. He closed his eyes shut against the Theo staring at him from the glass, and, sightless, he took a swig of the fire whiskey before opening them again.

He studied the reflection with cold, objective eyes. White skin under curly dark hair. A body that had once been lean and scrawny lapsing into the softness of middle age come too soon. His eyes were dark and wide, unpleasantly bloodshot and unblinking. Feeling rather nauseous, he looked away from the mirror unsteadily.

He didn't like looking in the mirror. He always felt as though he couldn't recognize himself, as though there was a gleam in his own eyes that was totally unfamiliar. It left him with an unpleasant sense of vertigo, and a taste of iron in his mouth.

"The Christmas party," he muttered to himself, and took another lazy swig of firewhisky. "Come on, Theo. Pull yourself together, you've got that thrice-damned party to go to."

For a long moment, he didn't move, rolling the taste of the firewhisky around his mouth, enjoying the momentary heat it brought to his chest and stomach. The edge of the bathroom counter dug into his hip; his feet were numb against the cold of the tile floor.

Finally, he moved, walking dreamily towards his closet as if asleep.


	2. Part II: The Woman

Crowds made Theo uncomfortable, and the tight bunch of Ministry officials crammed into one of the Department of International Cooperation's conference rooms was no exception. The collar of his dress robes seemed to be strangling him; he felt much too warm.

"Welcome, Mr. Nott," boomed the deep voice of Kingsley Shacklebolt. The Minister of Magic disentangled himself gracefully from a group of foreign-looking wizards to come and shake Theo's hand warmly. Theo was mildly taken aback in the face of Shacklebolt's wide smile. He'd seen the Minister a couple of times, but they certainly didn't know each other well.

"I'm so glad that you could make it," Shacklebolt exclaimed, gripping Theo's hand in an iron-like vise. "It's rare to have an Unspeakable actually come to one of our Ministry get-togethers, but it is certainly nice to have someone here from every department. I do hope you enjoy yourself."

Without waiting for a reply, the Minister was striding off into the crowd again, heading for a cluster of lime-robed Healers and leaving Theo standing awkwardly by a small statue of a jovial Father Christmas. He felt overwhelmed; the sights and sounds of the party seemed to come at him from every direction, engulfing him in a cacophony of bright lights and loud conversation. Even worse than the constancy of the lights and the voices were the smells. He could almost taste on the air the odor of the pine needles, the alcohol, the bitter sweat of too many people too close together.

The beast in his belly hissed in distaste, and Theo felt a flash of cold pain.

In the corner, some couches were arranged under an artistic arrangement of everlasting icicles that had been affixed to the ceiling. Stumbling slightly, he made his way over to them, clenching his hands into fists as he elbowed his way through the crowd.

Here, at least, were some familiar faces. Pansy Parkinson, who worked in administration up on the first floor, had brought along Draco Malfoy. The two sat on a loveseat together, staring off into opposite directions as though utterly bored by each other's company. The imposing Bulstrode sisters stood in the corner, their arms crossed against their sizeable chests, silent and unmoving as boulders. Evey Macnair, two years his junior, sat by herself, her intelligent eyes flicking out across the crowd from her narrow, swarthy face. Sloth-like Carlisle Warrington was seated not too far from her, staring unabashedly and rather stupidly at her short, dark curls.

The corner was silent, and the other party-goers seemed to be avoiding it as though it were cursed. Theo glanced over the dark faces of the corner's inhabitants. Progeny of Death Eaters, one and all, he thought bitterly. The war had been over for years, and yet the others still feared them.

He sat in a stiff-backed chair across from the loveseat, and Draco gave him a courteous nod before going back to staring out at the other party-goers, away from Pansy. The quiet was almost suffocating, but he found it preferable to the meaningless chatter that had enveloped the rest of the room.

He let out his breath in a slow hiss through his teeth. He would stay for thirty minutes, perhaps an hour, and then return to his flat where he could turn off the lights and the heat and collapse into the familiar blackness of sleep. Crossing an ankle over the opposite knee, he settled into his chair to wait for the time to pass.

Suddenly, he started. Across the room, he'd seen a familiar figure, a familiar face under dark and wild hair. He leaned forward, squinting into the crowd.

There. There she was, dressed in form-fitting scarlet dress robes, one arm loosely around the waist of Blaise Zabini, the other hand holding a glass of champagne. She was laughing, her red lips open wide, exposing her teeth, her pink tongue. Blaise tilted his head down to whisper in her ear, and she laughed harder, throwing her head back. Her throat was white, slender, vulnerable beneath her dark tresses.

Turning, Daphne caught Theo's eye and smiled.

He looked away quickly, clenching his stomach in pain as the beast constricted painfully.

When he looked back up, Daphne was tugging at Blaise's shoulder, motioning him over towards the couches in the corner. Theo stood quickly, making his way past Draco, who glanced at him questioningly before shrugging and gazing back into space. Looking back, Theo saw Blaise and Daphne sit down together on one of the sofas. Daphne's dress robes were unbuttoned at the top, and she was leaning into Blaise, one hand on his chest as she whispered up to him.

Theo swallowed, and made his way over to the drinks table, shoving aside his distaste for the crowds. He grabbed a glass and backed up against the wall, concentrating on not looking into the corner where Daphne sat in her scarlet robes with her scarlet mouth, concentrating on holding his glass with a steady hand.

He stared at the ceiling and threw back the pale gold liquid, wishing desperately that it was something stronger.

"Nott, is that you?" called a shrill voice that Theo didn't recognize from somewhere to his left. Turning, he caught sight of a bushy-haired witch in smart robes of a silvery-blue color. She was holding a full champagne glass in one hand, and gestured to him rather excitedly as she approached.

"It is you!" she exclaimed as she got closer. "Oh, this is just surreal! There are so many people from Hogwarts here! I haven't been to one of these parties yet; I'm usually far too busy. But I suppose I've been missing out. I've seen Tracy Davies, Cho Chang, Susan Bones…I had no idea so many of my old schoolmates worked in the Ministry as well!"

"I'm sorry," replied Theo slowly. "Who are you?"

"Oh, my apologies," she said hastily. "I'm just Hermione Granger. You were in my Arithmancy classes all through Hogwarts. Top of that class, you were. I was always trying to beat your grades, and I could never get mine quite high enough."

"I think you made up for it in all the other subjects," Theo muttered, taken aback. Just Hermione Granger. Just the heroine of the Wizarding War. Just the witch who had sent his father to Azkaban, damn him.

"Don't be so modest," chided Granger. Now that she was closer to him, Theo could see that she was a bit tipsy. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes bright. "You always were rather nice, especially for a Slytherin."

Theo almost snorted. Especially for a Slytherin. Always that little qualification.

Granger leaned against the wall beside him, taking a sip from her glass. He wished she would leave him alone, leave him in peace. He glanced through the clusters of people, fingering his empty cup. In the corner, Daphne was practically in Blaise's lap. She was biting her lip, grinning a coy little half-smile. One of her pale hands was entwined in Blaise's dark fingers.

"Are you alright?" asked Granger suddenly, and Theo turned to look at her.

"Of course," he said. "Of course I'm alright."

"You just looked a little…strange for a moment there."

"I'm fine." Theo felt hollow. He didn't want Daphne. He didn't care about Daphne. He was only thinking about her because he wanted sex. He wanted another warm body pressed against his, wanted to ride the wave of someone else's emotions.

Granger's eyes were very bright, reflecting the lights strung up around the room. She was beaming, lips widened into an eager, wondering smile as she took in the party.

Theo nudged her, and pointed above them. "Look. Mistletoe."

Granger glanced up, and the smile slid from her face. She straightened, looking a bit flustered and significantly less tipsy. "Nott, I'm engaged. I really can't…"

Theo said nothing, standing as still as a statue, watching the sudden fear appear on her face.

"My fiancé…it wouldn't be right. I'm sorry. I think I've had a bit too much to drink. Would you mind taking my glass? I've got to go. If you'll excuse me…" She hurried off, wiping her hands along the sides of her robes nervously as she went.

Theo sighed, and downed her glass. He snagged another one, and then, shaking his head, made his way back towards the corner where Daphne sat.

The beast in his belly protested violently, reaching up into his chest. He smoothed his face, ordered his mind to empty, and it quieted.

He leaned against the wall beside Morgan and Millicent Bulstrode, sipping from his glass casually. Blaise smirked at him from where he was curled up with Daphne on the sofa.

"Where've you been, then, Nott?"

Theo stared at him with even eyes. "Just been having a bit of a chat with Hermione Granger."

Draco flinched as if he had been struck, looking down at his lap. Pansy's puggish face contorted into a sneer.

"I see." Laughter lurked in Blaise's dark, handsome face. "Reminiscing about the old days?"

"You could say that."

Daphne slung one of her legs over Blaise's lap. "We were all such different people back then, don't you think, Theo? Take me, for example: I was such a prudish little schoolgirl in those days."

Millicent Bulstrode snorted. "Yeah, right."

"Really," Daphne replied earnestly. "I finished my seventh year without ever having kissed a boy."

"I find that hard to believe," murmured Blaise, nuzzling Daphne's neck.

She smirked. "I think we all had our secrets."

Pansy pursed her lips. "Anyone else care to share?" She turned to her date. "Draco?"

Little Evey Macnair threw back her head and laughed. "I think we all know all of Malfoy's secrets."

Draco's eyes flashed dangerously as he looked up; his hands tightened into fists in his lap.

Blaise joined in, chuckling. "Yeah. Practically the whole wizarding world knows about little Draco's cowardice. About his incompetence at the Battle of Hogwarts, about how he was too scared to finish off Dumbledore, about how he spent his entire sixth year crying his eyes out with Moaning Myrtle…"

Draco stood violently. "Shut it," he whispered, his eyes narrowed and his voice perilously soft.

In the silence that followed, Theo spoke, suddenly and softly. "I've never cried," he said, the words coming from his mouth as if forced out by someone else.

"Excuse me?" asked Blaise incredulously.

"I've never cried," Theo repeated, his voice flat.

"You're a bloody liar," hissed Draco, turning to face Theo almost violently. Theo gazed passionlessly into the unadulterated pain in Draco's silver eyes, and shook his head.

"I am not a liar." His face was expressionless. Draco faltered, stepped back, and Theo felt a surge of grim satisfaction.

"There's something wrong with you, Nott," muttered Draco. "I don't know what the hell it is, but there is something wrong with you and there always has been."

"I could have told you that," yawned Daphne. She stood, pulling Blaise up behind her, guiding his hands to her waist. "Come on, Blaise. Let's get out of here. We can go back to my place."

Theo watched them go with empty eyes. Draco's words echoed in his head: _There is something wrong with you, Nott…there is something wrong with you and there always has been_.

No. Not always, he thought, and suddenly the beast in his belly was clawing at him so viciously he could hardly stand. He felt nauseous. The room spun wildly and for a moment he was afraid that he was going to vomit. He tasted iron, and pressed his back against the wall as he waited for the pain to pass.

Slowly, it abated, fading into a gentle ache. He swallowed painfully. Blaise and Daphne had disappeared. Draco had stalked off. Evey Macnair lounged in her chair, watching him with shrewd eyes.

"You alright there, Nott?" she purred.

"Yeah," he spat out. "Yeah, I'm just fine. I'm outta here."

Still feeling a bit dizzy, he shoved his way back through the crowd. He caught a glimpse of Granger on the way out, and she avoided his gaze as though afraid of him.


End file.
